


In the Place of the Bulls

by navigatorsghost



Category: Automotive Marques
Genre: Gen, Genderless Characters, Initiation, Lamborghinis, Magical Realism, cars as characters, machines with souls, platonic forms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 16:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navigatorsghost/pseuds/navigatorsghost
Summary: It isn't only in the boardroom that the fates of prototype cars are decided. This is a very strange story that I wrote a few years ago when the Lamborghini Huracán was first released, inspired by some of the promotional pictures published at the time and by the very long list of beautiful cars that Lamborghini have designed over the years but never put into production. Plato believed that the perfect ideals or concepts of material things exist in a realm distinct from our own... I kind of took that thought and ran with it. This was the result.





	In the Place of the Bulls

There is no one moment at which the spirit becomes aware of itself. There is no flash of Cartesian insight, no pure and philosophical _I am_. Digital logic has no place in a world of machines still built with analogue hearts.

There is only the whisper, under the wheels, of sand marked with a crimson-black path of oil and blood. Only the darkness, spreading out to either side of a narrow road of light. From another place, from another age, the roar of a long-ago crowd echoes like the ghost of thunder. To the timeless place of the final trial, the one named Huracán drives through the darkness of a dream.

No matter how long and hard their road to this place, all those who reach it will have their chance to be chosen. And no matter when they arrive, those who choose will always be waiting.

The arena. The place of the bulls.

The road of sand runs out, losing itself in the wider sands that spread beneath the wheels of those who wait. White mist spills from beneath their bodies, banking and coiling in the glow of the wheel-lights set into the arena floor. Their up-cast shadows, huge and black and angular, cluster overhead and merge into a darkness unbreakable. Engines rumble - V8, V10, V12, each at its own pitch of threat or temptation, danger or desire. Running lights burn in the darkness like eyes of fire.

Huracán slows, rolling to a stop at the edge of the shadows. Only the Chosen may stand in the light, and their names alone are a litany to stop heart and breath: Diablo, Aventador, Miura, Murciélago, great lean shapes with actinic fire in their eyes and shadows painted thick in the wedges and hollows of their glorious bodies. Spaced between them, just as proud, are their smaller kindred: the swift and the light, the fearless and fair. Jalpa, Espada, Gallardo, Urraco - names of lesser majesty, but equal honour.

And behind them in the darkness, in the shadows, are the ghosts. The spirits of those not chosen linger in this place, their engines' voices a haunting choir of whispers. The lights in their eyes are dim as guttering candles as they circle like a spectral wolfpack, listening, watching, hungry still. Marzal, a gleam of light on phantom glass; Athon, graceful as sunlight, and just as lost in the stygian dark. The slab-sided spectres of the ill-fated LMs, towering behind the rest like gigantic sentinels.

Huracán tries not to look too deeply into those shadows. It did not come here to become one of them. Instead, it looks into the heart of the circle, into the mist and the light. Into the centre of the place of the bulls.

"Who comes before us?"

The voice is soft, with a feline, feminine sensuality, a velvet glove that might yet hide claws of steel. Miura speaks, but it speaks for them all when it gently commands: "Tell us your name."

A name. So often the last touch to be added, and yet so vitally significant. The newcomer replies with pride. "My name is Huracán."

"Huracán." Miura's tones lilt on the name, turning it over like a plaything to examine it, testing the weight and feel of it. "A good name." Miura turns its attention, addressing the rest of the chosen ones. "Who stands sponsor for this little one?" it asks; lightly, as though the question were of no great consequence. "Who speaks for Huracán?"

"I do." Aventador's voice is a twelve-cylinder rumble, deep and strong and warm with the easy compassion of one with nothing to fear. Diamond sidelights flash an encouraging glance to Huracán, keen and bright. "I would have Huracán to run at my side. I stand sponsor for my brother-to-be." A creak from Aventador's parking brake as it shifts its great, angular weight, looking around the circle of the Chosen. "Do I hear a second?"

"I second," comes the reply, quick and lightly spoken, the words of an eager and generous heart. "Gallardo speaks for the one who will follow me. I say Huracán should stand among us."

"Small surprise," mutters a new voice, querulous with age and displeasure. "Aventador and Gallardo, thick as thieves to the end. Vulgarity begetting yet more vulgarity." The disapproving headlights of the Lamborghini 350GT frown in Huracán's direction. "Well," the venerable car adds snappishly, "come forward. Let me see what travesty we're being presented with this time!"

Huracán balks, indignation sparking against its wiser judgement, but Aventador calmly intervenes. "Come, little brother. Don't mind grandfather there. Come and let us look at you."

Warily and yet proudly, the newcomer obeys. The white mist swirls around Huracán's wheels, icy-cold. There is a moment of uncertainty as the light reveals a form as yet unused to defining itself, and then colour and detail coalesce into full presence. Gleaming steel-grey soaks up the pale light of the arena, matte-black shadows pooling in the sharp-edged hollows of Huracán's bodywork. Elegant running lights set in the suggestion of a determined little frown look around, refusing to be intimidated, daring a challenge from any who might choose to offer one.

"Hmph." Parked wheel-to-wheel beside its predecessor, the 400GT is no more approving. "Ridiculous. Ferruccio would turn in his grave." Its engine coughs, a snort of disdain. Huracán bristles.

"You always say that," comes a new voice; quiet and delicately accented, yet fierce now with a passion that seems to surprise even itself. "You two will never be satisfied with anything but yourselves! Nothing is good enough for you. You vetoed Bravo, Marzal, Athon - where does it end?!"

A rustle of whispers runs through the ghosts outside the circle, and those within look in surprise at the speaker. Islero seldom speaks at these gatherings, and never with such fire; but now, though its preferred black avatar is almost invisible in the shadows, it meets the gazes of its younger, more powerful kindred with unflinching courage. "What?" it demands, simply. "Am I wrong?"

"No, and there's the hell of it." The voice is that of a crimson roadster with black "SV" insignia tattooed on its muscular flanks: Diablo, straight-spoken without pretention. "Bravely said, though. So you're for this newcomer, I take it?"

"Aye." Islero glances sideways at Huracán, offering shy reassurance. "I like you," it adds softly, for Huracán's hearing alone. "You're beautiful. Never be afraid."

"Thank you," Huracán whispers, a warmth settling somewhere in the cradle of its subframe that is more than just the heat of a V10 engine. "So are you. And I'm not afraid."

"What are you two whispering about?" a new voice asks; silky, sexless, seductive. Squared-off sidelights slant through the mists as the cocaine king of the eighties supercars noses forward to join in the debate. Countach has chosen the most outrageous of all its guises for this gathering: the extravagant lines of a crystal-white QuattroValvole gleam in the shadows, cutting the light with the razor edge of its huge wing spoiler.

Huracán ducks a little by instinct, nose dipping towards the ground in respect to the elder machine, looking up halfway between uncertainty and defiance. The acerbic demeanour of the GTs was one thing, but it's all but impossible not to shiver under that languorous tone and wicked, darkly knowing gaze. "Let me look at you," Countach murmurs, flipping up its powerful quad-halogen headlights to pin Huracán with a golden-edged stare. "Hmm. You _are_ beautiful." Its tone is teasing, soft as a fingertip touch over trembling metal, and Huracán shivers again, caught without knowing why between the surge of pride and the flush of shame. Hesitating, not knowing whether, or what, to reply-

And forestalled in the need to do so by another voice, a lofty tone as arrogant in its way as the old GTs. "Not that special, to my mind," Sesto Elemento observes, black body almost invisible in the darkness, picked out only by the twin crimson insets on its bonnet and the glow of its running lights. "Could have been more dramatic, I feel. Too ordinary. Perhaps a little too... Audi?"

A ripple of hissed outrage runs around the circle at that last word and Huracán, too, bristles; but once again, is saved the trouble of replying. "Too ordinary?" Countach's voice is playful, mocking, a stiletto dagger in a satin sheath. "This, from one whose _unique_ design was defeated by a _perfectly_ ordinary drop kerb..."

This time it's laughter that skitters through the listeners, and the tension ebbs away. "This, from one who can't see where they've been for their own spoiler," Sesto Elemento mutters, but not forcefully enough to constitute a real retort. Aventador chuckles out loud, a low rumble of sound, and Huracán dares to gasp out a quiet laugh in turn.

"Actually, you remind me of Estoque, a little." Reventón speaks for the first time, a sleek steel blade in the black, gleaming dark and slick as oil. "Whom I was for, for whatever that's worth." Outside the circle, something moves for a moment; a skirl of icy air, a lost whisper of a distant V10 engine, something crying in the night and then hushed back to silence by voices at the phantom edge of hearing. A shudder and a chill touches those within the circle, engines growl and headlights flicker. Huracán holds itself still, refuses to look at the shadows. _No. No! I did not come here to become a ghost._

"A little, maybe." Diablo speaks again, and Huracán feels its suspension untense. The older supercar's voice and presence carry a strength of reassurance, an unspoken promise that here, at least, a newcomer can hope for a fair hearing. "Something around the nose. I think this little one stands a better chance, though."

"Chance of what?" the 350GT snorts. "Bringing in even more mass-market imbeciles than Gallardo did? Or-"

"Hush." Miura's velvet tones cut off the other car with soft, yet forceful authority. "If we're down to bickering, then I call for the vote. Second?"

"Seconded," Countach offers lazily, at the same moment that Islero chimes in, "Second!" The two of them look at each other. Islero dips its nose shyly, abashed, and Countach's soft laugh echoes in the dark. Huracán stands its ground; trying not to show fear, trying not to feel it. _I am Lamborghini, as much as any here, they have no reason to reject me..._

"Seconds accepted," Miura murmurs, gentle amusement edging its voice. "Lights down, then, if you please."

The blue wheel-lights go out, fading slowly into nothingness, their filaments glowing like wraiths for another moment before they too vanish. Engines cut out; headlights and sidelights switch off, plunging the arena into true, pure darkness.

Huracán quickly kills its own lights and engine, following suit. The cold seems to close in and the mist coils against its bodywork, reaching icy fingers into vents and intakes, condensing against cool glass. In the pitch black, the whispers of the ghosts seem louder, closer. Huracán holds its ground, shivering, riven with pity and fear at once...

And then Miura's voice carries through the dark, clear as the touch of summer sunlight, and the fear fades away. "Brothers, sisters, kindred," the firstborn of all supercars declaims, the power of ritual ringing in the words. "Here within our circle, in the Place of the Bulls, I give you Huracán, latest of our line; spoken for before us by Aventador and Gallardo, both of the Chosen." A pause, a beat of silence. "Do any here know cause that this one should not pass forward to the Test? Speak now, or nevermore."

The silence holds, stretches out. Even the whispers of the ghosts are muted into quiet. Huracán listens, straining every sense in the hope of hearing nothing.

"Then I call for the final test," Miura says, the words at once a shock and a release in the noiseless dark. "Kindred, Chosen: if you would have this one join us, _light their road!_ "

And there is light, and thunder. All around the circle, headlights flash on and great engines roar to life in support of Huracán's right to stand with the Chosen. Dazzled in the sudden blaze of glory, deafened by the noise, Huracán sees only some of the votes cast in its favour - Aventador, Diablo, Islero, Miura itself with its pivoted lights. Countach's halogens are a flare of gold, Reventón's raked xenons twin daggers in the dark. The handful of naysayers fade behind the light, seeming momentarily diminished by their refusal to add to it; the two old GTs become sullen shadows, Sesto Elemento a spiteful silhouette. The light drowns them, and their dissenting voices are lost in the overwhelming roar of affirmation. _Yes. Yes. Yes!_

"Accepted!" Miura's beautiful voice rings out, carrying strong over the noise as engines settle again to idling, the massed rumble of two dozen V8s, V10s and V12s echoing through the arena until Huracán can feel its whole frame trembling with joyful resonance. "The circle has spoken." Miura rolls forward a few feet, turning its shining gaze fully upon the newest of the Chosen. "Welcome, Huracán, kindred, Chosen. Welcome. May you be fast and free and forever beloved, may you bear our name with honour and in turn may it bring you glory. May all who see you desire you, and all who know you adore you." There is a tremor in Miura's tone, a raw edge of genuine joy that touches Huracán more even than the ritual blessing itself. "Welcome!"

 _I will, I swear it,_ Huracán wants to say, but it seems that no answer is expected or required, since Miura has barely finished speaking before the others are calling out greetings, welcomes, applause. "Brother," Aventador growls joyfully, coming up beside Huracán, silver-grey flanks brushing close together. "Welcome!"

"Thank you," Huracán whispers, "I hope I'll make you proud of me," and then Islero is there too, rolling forward until its delicate black nose almost touches Huracán's. "Oh, welcome! I'm so happy for you... say we'll be friends!"

"Of course we will," Huracán promises, heartfelt. "Thank you."

"Chosen, bravo!" And that's Countach's silken voice, fond yet still gently mocking, soft as the wind's kiss. "They'll know your name."

And it's that promise, more than anything else, that Huracán realises it was waiting to hear. To be remembered. To drive a thousand roads in a thousand different incarnate forms, to see the mortal world through a thousand pairs of sparkling diamond eyes. To live a thousand lives in a thousand skins, and to be adored in all of them. _That,_ Huracán understands with a sudden shock of comprehension, is what it truly means to be Chosen.

_Whatever else happens from this moment, I will never be forgotten._

In the Place of the Bulls, surrounded by friends and kindred, the one named Huracán stares joyfully into the light, and waits for all its tomorrows to begin.


End file.
